This document provides an introduction to the Ruby on Rails web framework. Some key points: - Rails is a model-view-controller framework for building database-backed web applications using the Ruby programming language. It emphasizes conventions over configuration for rapid development. - Rails was created by David Heinemeier Hansson in 2004 and saw major growth and adoption from 2005-2006. It provides features like object-relational mapping and support for Ajax. - Comparisons between Rails and other technologies like Java show much higher growth and smaller project sizes for Rails applications. Rails allows developers to be more productive and focus on business logic rather than infrastructure code.